Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.

September 11 was, and remains, above all an immense human tragedy. But September 11 also posed a momentous and deliberate challenge not just to America but to the world at large. The target of the terrorists was not only New York and Washington but the very values of freedom, tolerance and decency which underpin our way of life.

Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics.

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.

Because I happen to believe that the best policy solutions lie in the center ground, then I want to see, how does the center revitalize itself? How does it develop the policy agenda for the future? And how do we link up people who have the same basic ideas and attachments to the same basic values across the world?

Examine the legacy that we inherited and what we did. We had boom-and-bust economics and a doubled national debt.

All the evidence here, for example, in Britain, is that migrants, particularly from the rest of Europe, who come here contribute far more in taxes.